1) Can anyone explian what’s the difference between Stock Broker and Stock Advisor?.
2) What are the parameters to find out the best stock broker/ advisor.
3) I am sure most of us (if not everyone) have some experience in direct stock investing. Name the stock broker / advisor and tell how it fared for you.

I had accounts with stock brokers Dawnaday AV, Anagram Securities, and ICICI Direct. None of them provided any good inputs/ advises. For sake of consolidation, i have just kept on to ICICI Direct ( without any reason why ICICI).

Now i know stock investing is not better for individuals or for those who r risk averse and stuff like that. I am looking for a answer to the questions above. Kindly do not be generic in answering these questions.

Regards,
Chandrakant D

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6 replies on this article “Difference between Stock Broker and Stock Advisor”

Hi Chandrakant,
Stock brokers are regulated financial intermediaries who get brokerage as their income when you place a trade from them.

Stock Advisors are people who advise on which stocks which you should buy (recommendation) and they do not go ahead to execute this for you.

Ideally speaking, there should be Chinese walls (segregation of duties) between Stock Brokers and Advisors. Simply putting, a stock broker should not give stock advise as his income is based upon the buying / selling of the stocks and hence he may promote you to buy any thing to generate his turnover.

Hence, no broker is a good advisor. I will not be able to comment on a stock advisor. However, I am a big fan of SP Tulsian who frequently speaks on CNBC TV 18.

Yes, i have heard Mr. S P Tulsian so many times. I have never tried his advises though. Have u followed him for any of his advises and were the results positive ?.

Exercise which i took was like this.

Get the stocks recommended by various advisors in the past 1-2 years (from archives). See what was recommended price and target price after certain duration. Most of them were wrong decisions. So i fired the above question

People who appear on TV or other media have to give some advices. Following them is your prerogative and hence, the onus lies with you. Unless you yourself are able to analyse the companies’ data, following those advices blindly is “pure unadulterated speculation / gambling” and not at all investment.

TV news is for entertainment, so enjoy it. Do not burn your money on that.

The maximum which you can gain from media is good pointers and then do your own analysis.

Dear Chandrakant, the basic definition is already provided by dear Ramesh. In my opinion, an honest stock adviser who is able to help you to pick the winners or should I say make you profit in each & every case is a very rare commodity. Some of these are already in public domain – the fund managers of various frontline Eq. schemes.

1. Stock broker = person/institution having license to handle transfer of share/stock on a stock exchange (national/regional).
Stock advisor = professional / non-professional who advices on what to buy/sell and manage protfolio.

Most brokerages give advice “free” and generate income from that. Some companies provide only advice services and let you do things on your own.

2. There is no “best”. In my opinon, a good broker is one whose workings are reliable and time-bound and do not indulge in severe malpractices.

3. I have an account with HDFC and they are pretty reliable in that sense (mind you, I dont have any trading experience). The integration of the savings account and the brokerage account is good for me.